Would it be a mistake to buy a 1GB iPad Mini now?

Forums › Apple iOS and devices › Would it be a mistake to buy a 1GB iPad Mini now?

Oubadah

676 posts

Ultimate Geek

#183655 25-Oct-2015 14:24

I want a small tablet with a high density display, good build quality/durability, a current OS and decent battery life. I'll use it mostly for video, music, e-books and light browsing. I had excluded apple products from my search as I'm not particularly interested in the apple ecosystem and I expected this class of tablets to be just as overpriced as the rest of their stuff, but $450 for the baseline iPad 2 actually seems kind of reasonable given the (limited) competition. The iPad fits my main criteria, however I'm concerned about the 1GB of RAM. People always say that Apple can get away with it's meagre RAM spec "because iOS uses RAM more efficiently" or some such, but what about the internet? Web pages are going to weigh the same regardless of what OS is on the machine, and the biggest difference I have noticed between my 1GB and 2GB android phones is in web browsing. I've found a lot of conflicting info on the web, with some people saying the 1GB iPads are fine as long as you're not multitasking, and others saying that with the latest iOS even the OS environment itself is clunky. I'm not going to be trying to multitask or run high performance applications, but I don't want web browsing to be uncomfortably slow.

The iPad mini 4 bumps the price up too high, to the point where I don't see it as competitive any more, and if I were to spend that much it wouldn't be an iPad. The $450-500 range is where they interest me.

So any input on the 1GB thing would be appreciated, and also let me know if you have suggestions for alternatives. I'm going to avoid writing a long rambling post about all the devices I've written off and the reasons why, but in the case of the Samsung Android tablets it was the PenTile pixels (I would love an OLED display, just not PenTile), and I'd rather not purchase discontinued Nexus devices (was anticipating a new Nexus, but all that appeared was the Pixel C, which would be out of my price range if it ever even showed up in NZ). I had also hoped for a wave of new Windows 10 tablets by now, but all I see are a bunch of old and underwhelming Win8 ones.

One other thing that irritates me about the iPad mini is that they were too cheap to put GPS in the Wifi versions. Even poverty spec Android tabs, like my HP 8 G2, all seem to have GPS. I guess I can live with my phone's GPS, but it would have been nice to have had a large screen GPS device.

Athlonite

1828 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1413531 25-Oct-2015 15:23

You could always go with an Nexus 9

mattwnz

20141 posts

Uber Geek

#1413535 25-Oct-2015 15:30

Are you talking about the mini 1, mini 2, or mini 3? I would avoid the 1st gen mini, because based on the ipad 2 which is largely the same spec, it will be too laggy. I would ignore comparing the hardware with android specs, because iOS is specially tuned for their hardware.

Oubadah

676 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1413545 25-Oct-2015 15:56

Athlonite: You could always go with an Nexus 9

Why did I have the idea that the Nexus 9 was discontinued? Well, I guess I'll put that one back on the table as a possibility, although it is $50-100 more than the iPad if I want to get it from a reputable store. Does the Nexus 9 have any "known issues" like the touchscreen thing with the 7?

mattwnz: Are you talking about the mini 1, mini 2, or mini 3? I would avoid the 1st gen mini, because based on the ipad 2 which is largely the same spec, it will be too laggy.

The Mini 2/3. The 3 is supposed to be discontinued, but there is still a lot of old stock. As I understand it they are practically identical, so I'd lean towards the cheaper 2 because I don't much care about the fingerprint reader.

Athlonite

1828 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1413553 25-Oct-2015 16:28

Oubadah:
Athlonite: You could always go with an Nexus 9

Why did I have the idea that the Nexus 9 was discontinued? Well, I guess I'll put that one back on the table as a possibility, although it is $50-100 more than the iPad if I want to get it from a reputable store. Does the Nexus 9 have any "known issues" like the touchscreen thing with the 7?

from what I've read if you're comfortable with putting another rom on it then Cyanogen make a rom for it that supposedly fixes any issues it may have under Lollipop 5.1.1 my n7 2012 lagged quite a bit with 5.1.1 until I forced it to reinstall itself now it's smooth as butter with little to no lag at all

geekiegeek

2513 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1413554 25-Oct-2015 16:38

In my experience android tablet apps are few and far between. If you want the best experience get an iPad.

khull

1245 posts

Uber Geek

#1413556 25-Oct-2015 16:57

Without knowing your web browsing habits, it not easy to determine 'fast' vs 'uncomfortable slow'. Like you've already mentioned in general iOS fares batter over Android on memory consumption and usage with better multitasking capability.

Watch this for comparison even with less RAM and applies to iOS devices:
https://youtu.be/Mx6XaV2K8Go

When it comes to browsing, I personally think you are fussed over specs over what you might actually use the device for. I recommend that you go in store and try the iPad mini 2 (with retina) and give your 'browsing test' a go as that is your litmus test criteria over another device.

Dunnersfella

4086 posts

Uber Geek

#1413580 25-Oct-2015 18:41

I would strongly suggest never using something as slow as the iPad 2... it's horrendously slow compared to almost everything else on the market.
I just grabbed an iPad Mini 4 (64GB) and it's as snappy as you'd like. I just couldn't go back to a slower device, I'd simply never pick it up...

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Oubadah

676 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1413584 25-Oct-2015 18:50

Dunnersfella: I would strongly suggest never using something as slow as the iPad 2... it's horrendously slow compared to almost everything else on the market.
I just grabbed an iPad Mini 4 (64GB) and it's as snappy as you'd like. I just couldn't go back to a slower device, I'd simply never pick it up...

Is there any chance that a sale in the near future will the mini 4 closer to $500? I haven't been been watching any apple products, so I don't know what kind of sales they are subject to.

tdgeek

29740 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1413586 25-Oct-2015 18:53

Oubadah:
Dunnersfella: I would strongly suggest never using something as slow as the iPad 2... it's horrendously slow compared to almost everything else on the market.
I just grabbed an iPad Mini 4 (64GB) and it's as snappy as you'd like. I just couldn't go back to a slower device, I'd simply never pick it up...

Is there any chance that a sale in the near future will the mini 4 closer to $500? I haven't been been watching any apple products, so I don't know what kind of sales they are subject to.

Go to Apple NZ and check refurbished, or 1Day they do them as well

scuwp

3885 posts

Uber Geek

#1413592 25-Oct-2015 19:34

iPad 2 is end of life. In order to get the best longevity out of an apple device (i.e. ongoing iOS updates and associated apps) then get the latest possible model that suits your needs and budget.

Lazy is such an ugly word, I prefer to call it selective participation

Oubadah

676 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1413736 25-Oct-2015 22:08

Athlonite: from what I've read if you're comfortable with putting another rom on it then Cyanogen make a rom for it that supposedly fixes any issues it may have under Lollipop 5.1.1 my n7 2012 lagged quite a bit with 5.1.1 until I forced it to reinstall itself now it's smooth as butter with little to no lag at all

When you say you forced 5.1.1 to reinstall, do you mean you did it from a factory image, or were you talking about Cyanogen? It so happens that I have a 1st gen nexus 7 which is unusable because it's so slow (also clicking audio). No amount of cache clearing/factory resetting will fix it (it's 5.1.1). Should I flash over it with the factory image via adb?

Athlonite

1828 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1413754 25-Oct-2015 23:59

Oubadah:
Athlonite: from what I've read if you're comfortable with putting another rom on it then Cyanogen make a rom for it that supposedly fixes any issues it may have under Lollipop 5.1.1 my n7 2012 lagged quite a bit with 5.1.1 until I forced it to reinstall itself now it's smooth as butter with little to no lag at all

When you say you forced 5.1.1 to reinstall, do you mean you did it from a factory image, or were you talking about Cyanogen? It so happens that I have a 1st gen nexus 7 which is unusable because it's so slow (also clicking audio). No amount of cache clearing/factory resetting will fix it (it's 5.1.1). Should I flash over it with the factory image via adb?

Yeah Factory image sorry should have made that distinction and yes via adb is the best way to go at one point I was seriously thinking about dropping back to kitkat but it seems to have done the trick and I've never had clicky audio problems

link to Lollipop 5.1.1 factory image >>> https://dl.google.com/dl/android/aosp/nakasi-lmy47v-factory-b48bd71d.tgz

redherring

85 posts

Master Geek

#1413848 26-Oct-2015 10:50

scuwp: iPad 2 is end of life. In order to get the best longevity out of an apple device (i.e. ongoing iOS updates and associated apps) then get the latest possible model that suits your needs and budget.

The iPad mini 2 (which OP is asking about) is several generations ahead of the iPad 2 and still a great device for web browsing, I'm using one right now.

scuwp

3885 posts

Uber Geek

#1413868 26-Oct-2015 10:58

redherring:
scuwp: iPad 2 is end of life. In order to get the best longevity out of an apple device (i.e. ongoing iOS updates and associated apps) then get the latest possible model that suits your needs and budget.

The iPad mini 2 (which OP is asking about) is several generations ahead of the iPad 2 and still a great device for web browsing, I'm using one right now.

My mistake. OP was just referring to the "ipad2" and didn't notice the title. Same advise stands. Apple are good quality and can maintain a long life if supported. If an extra $100 gets a later model the chances of it being supported for 1-2 years more is greatly improved. Nothing like a bit of future proofing.

Lazy is such an ugly word, I prefer to call it selective participation

mattwnz

20141 posts

Uber Geek

#1413961 26-Oct-2015 15:03

I would also suggest the OP doesn't get an 16gb model, as the OS is now so large ,and many apps now are quite big and do cache/store app data. The mini 4 is based on the older chip, and is slower than the year old air 2, which a few moneths ago you could buy for nearly the same price as the mini 4. But apple have recently put their prices up to NZ, due to the weaker NZ dollar.